At Home with Broad City’s Ilana Glazer

Today I’m interviewing two of my favorite comediennes, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City. Abbi gave us a tour of her West Village apartment earlier this morning, and now it’s Ilana’s turn. Ilana’s sense of humor translates so directly to her home, I couldn’t help but laugh every time I found a hilarious gem like her Nicki Minaj and Pharrell collage or hand-written guide to jewelry organization. If the Nicki and Pharrell collage didn’t already make you love Ilana, her comedy and interview below will. You can watch her and Abbi in action in a clip from Broad City below, and I hope you’ll continue after the jump for her full interview and more photos from her apartment. Thanks again to Ilana and Abbi for taking the time to talk with us. xo, grace

Ilana Glazer: This is a very common sentiment in NYC, but to come home to my own private space is so satisfying and delicious for my mind after a day of over-stimulation in the city. Brooklyn really feels like my living space, and Manhattan is my work borough, and my bedroom is its own little personal Brooklyn. My room is what I love most about my home!

D*S: Please tell us about the room in which you were photographed. What are some of the most meaningful pieces in here and why?

IG: I was photographed in my bedroom. A lot of my “decoration,” if you can even call it that, is silly or cheap or kind of arbitrary, like something I’ll find from a shoot or whatever. But the pictures of my young female cousins really inspire me because I think about them when I create. I want to make stuff that they would want to watch, that I would want them to watch, or watch eventually.

Ilana’s Nicki Minaj and Pharrell collage

D*S: What are your favorite local spots to shop, eat or just be inspired?

IG: I’m not so savvy with places; I kind of leave that up to my friends and my big brother to pick. But I do enjoy going out, gettin’ a bite. Like I like the library??? The Brooklyn Public Library on the NW corner of Prospect Park is awesome, so fun to see a wide range of ages. Prospect Park is like an adult playground. Or just an everybody playspace. I loooove the park — for chilling by foot and for biking around. I think my most inspiring thing to do is to bike to friends’ houses who live in different neighborhoods. It makes me feel like a kid, and biking is the thrill of my life. It’s half-terrifying half-not, it’s exhilarating and so stimulating. Combine that with connecting with peeps I love and I’m set. At that point, I don’t care what restaurant we go to, I already just had a ball!

D*S: The best part about your neighborhood is _________.

IG: I don’t run into anybody I know. I feel like in Manhattan I’m on; I see somebody I know every two or three blocks, just ‘cuz I’m from LI so I could see someone from home (most rare), and I went to school here so I could see someone from college (less rare) and, of course, I am always seeing comedians who are running to the next show.

D*S: Who are some of your favorite comedic influences, past and present?

IG: My brother, Eliot, and I used to write and film sketches for our entire childhood. We creepily have hours and hours and hours of this. We had two channels over our young careers, GBS (Glazer Broadcasting System) and KRAPTV.

D*S: What was your most significant recent comedic memory or experience?

IG: The last Broad City Live show was so fucking fun, I can’t even. It was the day before my 25th birthday, and I don’t care to do stuff really for my b-day, to like make a thing out of it.

D*S: What was the first skit you ever wrote or performed in?

IG: “The Determinator,” a sketch for GBS (lol), in which my brother was The Determinator and made me fart, pick my nose, and something else disgusting as “punishment” (though isn’t that just cathartic??).

i love these women! i have been watching Broad City for years. i typically dislike comedy, weird i know. it’s just that most comedy is so “man-based” and stereotypical (i blame capitalism). Broad City is AMAZING, hysterical, sentimental in a punch your buddy’s shoulder way and not the lifetime movie way. THANK YOU for bringing laughter to my daily existential crisis!!

Love this “At Home.” Yet another example of why DS* is the best. Not all of us are set designers who are married to screenwriters living bi-coastal lives with our precious little toddler. Ilana’s apartment reminds me of my old studio in SF, the original 275 square-foot apartment where my husband and I started our design business.

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